SXSW: The Psychology of Google Search

Google's User Experience Designer says some really interesting things about how the Google UI contributes to not just the success of Google, but the almost kinship users feel for it.

I sat down yesterday with Google's Jon Wiley, the User Experience Designer for Google's search team, and he said some really interesting things about how the Google UI contributes to not just the success of Google, but the almost kinship users feel for it.

One thing he stressed is that a big part of a user's feeling toward a product stems from self esteem: When a UI is frustrating and users can't figure out how to use it correctly, they feel bad about themselves. Conversely, when a UI is intuitive enough for beginners to quickly become power users, they feel empowered and are more likely to invest themselves in that product or service.

These are ideas I hadn't considered before, and I have a feeling they'll be new ideas to lots of developers and designers because so many user interfaces fail so miserably in this area.

Jim also talked with me about the need to get into users' heads and figure out what they're wanting to search for, while at the same time not completely creeping them out. Here are some good snippets from our conversation:

Google tends to take a "let's try it" approach...sometimes we try things where our users say "what are you doing?!" But we want to have the freedom to try. Experimentation is a big part of what we do; it's how we learn things

We're at the very beginning of search. It's only been around for what, 10 years? It's in its infancy. There are a lot of things to do. Like query formulation--search right now requires you to know something about what you're looking for...what to ask to get back the right results. Sometimes that's easy, but when you have to ask "What guided Kennedy in formulating his strategy for the Bay of Pigs?" it gets more complicated.

Trying to help people in that space and understand what they're looking for and suggest some things--we're going to get better at things like that.

How do we help people in a way that's not intrusive? It's hard for us to understand user intent in a way that's not intrusive and doesn't creep people out. There's this whole issue about how things like this make people feel. That's where a user experience designer comes in to help them along without getting in the way.

Because a big thing about Google is speed...it's a competitive advantage for Google. I can't slow users down or get in their way or we're going to lose users' trust. We need to know a lot more about user behavior and in-tent, and trying to understand our users.

And we want to turn people into power users. We want to get people who are just getting involved in the product and not scare them away, but get them to do the core tasks; as they use the product and pick up skills and knowledge, they get invested in it, and they feel better about themselves.

The mind reels trying to think of all the terrible user interfaces that fail at this. Think about cell phones, non-Apple MP3 players, security software, other search services, and stacks and stacks of hastily designed Web 2.0 startup sites. Wiley's suggestion: enable your usersall your usersto easily become power users.

Kyle Monson is the Senior Editor for PCMag.com. He oversees and edits PCMag.com’s home page and product news coverage, and helps out with site maintenance and editing. He also oversees feature projects like the Top 100 Web Sites, and writes reviews and news stories.
Kyle is the Founding Editor of AppScout, a PCMag.com-affiliated blog covering software and Web applications.
Before joining the PC Magazine staff, Kyle wrote for Newsweek and several daily newspapers. He has a BA in Communications (Print Journalism) from Brigham Young University.
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